The Stephen King adaptation 11 of Hollywood’s biggest stars turned down: “Didn’t want to do it”
Even though he isn’t held in the same esteem in literary circles as the most acclaimed and influential authors of all time, Stephen King has sold more books than most of them, so he won’t be losing any sleep over it.
Still, the big-screen adaptations of his work haven’t been lacking in major names willing to lend their talents to a King story. Morgan Freeman, Samuel L Jackson, Tom Hanks, Johnny Depp, Jack Nicholson, and Arnold Schwarzenegger are just some of the A-listers to headline a King flick, so there’s little snobbery to be found.
However, in one of the most ironic developments in the 50-year history of the horror icon becoming a one-man Hollywood subgenre, the first, and still only, one of the page-to-screen translations to win an Academy Award was turned down by no less than 11 top-of-the-line actors before it found a leading man.
Everybody else’s loss was James Caan’s gain, though, with the Godfather alum giving one of his best performances as Paul Sheldon in Misery, where he was made to suffer the wrath of Kathy Bates’ disarmingly nice, but still sledgehammer-wielding and leg-shattering, Annie Wilkes.
The rights were acquired by Rob Reiner’s Castle Rock Entertainment, the Spinal Tap maestro stepped into the director’s chair, two-time Oscar-winning screenwriter William Goldman was hired to pen the script, and everything was proceeding as planned until they discovered that none of their preferred options wanted anything to do with it.
In his book, Which Lie Did I Tell?, Goldman recalled the arduous process. “We went to William Hurt; didn’t want to do it,” he wrote. “We rewrote it, went back to William Hurt; didn’t want to do it again.” Kevin Kline? “Didn’t want to do it.” Michael Douglas? “Met with Rob, didn’t want to do it.” Harrison Ford? “Didn’t want to do it.”
What about Dustin Hoffman? “Liked Castle Rock, liked Rob, didn’t want to do it.” Undeterred, they went to Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, both of whom, as you’ve probably guessed, “didn’t want to do it.” Finally, a light arrived at the end of the tunnel, and it was shaped an awful lot like Richard Dreyfuss. Even better, he went to high school with Reiner and literally told the director, “Whatever it is, I’ll do it,” since he’d turned him down for When Harry Met Sally.
However, he read the script, and, you guessed it, “Didn’t want to do it.” The next port of call was Robert Redford. “He would have been extraordinary,” Goldman admitted, but he turned it down, too. The scribe said that “Gene Hackman would have been wonderful, but didn’t want to do it,” either, with Warren Beatty becoming the 11th high-profile actor to decline the opportunity to have Kathy Bates fuck them up.
As the old saying never goes, the 12th time was the charm. After exhausting every available option, Misery finally found someone willing to say yes when James Caan read the script, and at long last, the film found someone to play second fiddle to Bates’ incredible Oscar-winning tour de force.
